Spectrum mapping (SM) visualizes spectrum information across a geographical area, constructing radio environment maps (REMs), which serve as a foundation for spectrum monitoring, management, and security. Most existing SM schemes rely on spatially distributed sensors or vehicle-mounted equipment, and assume prior environmental knowledge, limiting their applicability in dynamic or unknown 3D environments. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian learning-based three-dimensional (3D) SM framework that enables accurate REM construction through adaptive UAV sampling in complex and unknown environments. First, a mutual-information-driven UAV path planner is designed by integrating an enhanced sampling-based optimization scheme, enabling efficient data collection according to the maximum mutual information criterion and recent sensing data. Second, a semi-deterministic channel dictionary, refined with sampled field data, is established to model the correlation between observed spectrum values and environmental features. Based on this dictionary, a Bayesian learning-based recovery algorithm reconstructs the spectrum distribution at unsampled positions, producing the corresponding 3D REM. Experimental results on open simulated and measured datasets demonstrate that the proposed framework reduces the mean absolute error by over 60% compared with CS-based methods and by 35% with data-driven interpolation. It also improves sampling efficiency by up to 70% for a given recovery accuracy, highlighting the effectiveness in unknown 3D environments.

Constructing three-dimensional (3D) radio environment maps (REMs) has emerged as a promising solution to visualize the spectrum information over the geographical map. In this paper, we propose a novel online path planning method for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based 3D spectrum mapping in unknown environments. The UAV can effectively collect spectrum data along dynamically planned paths while adhering to budget constraints. We formulate the path planning problem by a surrogate objective that maximizes the information gain along the sampling path. Specifically, a Gaussian process (GP) is adopted to estimate the spatial distribution of received signal strength (RSS) based on observations. A goal location decision algorithm based on the negative integrated posterior variance (NIPV) criterion is developed, which identifies high-value locations by maximizing the reduction in uncertainty. Besides, an uncertainty-aware local path planner is introduced to optimize sampling paths during flight. Simulation results demonstrate that it achieves at least a 66.49% improvement in REM construction accuracy and 42.74% reduction in mapping uncertainty compared to traditional methods.